Illumination systems, amongst others those for light applications in cars, often make use of LED technology. LED technology typically advantageously is used since the production of LED illumination sources is inexpensive and the energy consumption of LED illumination sources is low.
Control of illumination systems in automotive applications should be robust and fail-proof. For example, it should not be affected by external fields, electric peaks or other sources of noise. However, automotive environments are electrically noisy. A faulty transmission of data, or unintended activation of illumination systems, can result in dangerous situations which should be avoided.
Existing systems typically provide connection between different LEDs and their controllers by LIN or CAN systems. The number of LEDs that can be controlled is quite limited in case of LIN. On the other hand, setting illumination systems directly in CAN is complex, difficult to repair or interchange in case of failure or accident, and the implementation is expensive.
Moreover, the existing implementations are prone to errors due to for example interference, electrostatic discharge or antenna effects. In order to reduce these effects document DE102015222504A1 discloses an implementation based on SPI or on unidirectional differential data bus, which reduces the influence of antenna effects due to for example influence of the power line or external influences. However, this protection is only partial, and it does not allow protection due to variations or irregularities in the LED controllers.